Also-Ran
by metanoia-in-bloom
Summary: For all of her successes, Padmé Amidala arrives at a stalemate against her greatest thorn. Tired of the game, she comes to terms with the conclusion that she has lost. Ruminations on the different lives he could have had and the ones that he did. Oneshot.


A/N: I just joined this site after a hiatus from writing and this will be my first story. Reviews would be immensely appreciated and would absolutely encourage me to write more whether the criticism is good or bad.

Disclaimer: I do not, have not, and will never own the glorious playground that is Mr. Lucas's Star Wars universe. I'm just playing on the swing set.

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Also-Ran (n.) - A person who has taken place in an election or contest and did not win

She imagined his hands would be embedded with lines, a map of a thousand generations of parched beings, thirsting for something they never even knew existed. Hers was the land of olive tones, strands of hair the color of a wooded retreat, musky with the scent of the earth. Opportune moments, a phrase bearing no meaning in a place where possibility was _all _they had ever known. Here, here was nothing but time. Days, _years,_ to waste away, a methodical sort of routine. She imagined you could blink and ten years would have passed, and everything before, a faint memory. What would have become of him, she wondered, had such strange figures not come with stretching hands, grabbing for a destiny long decided? She liked to imagine him with drifting fingers; a wry grin, fingertips catching the glint of gold. He'd be in motion, the sun to everyone's orbit, and such things as petty theft would do nothing to detract from the light in his eyes. Her sibling would frown, chastising as older sisters do, but anything, _anything_ would be worth more than this.

_We could have left him. Let him be. Let him be._ This destiny was not his to undertake. It belonged to the order; fanatical beings, foolish, for all their wisdom. She can imagine the early years, the slow regression, corroding him from the inside out. It started in his chest, then spread like the veins of a spider web, on either side. Then the nerves in his brain could no longer bear it, and she imagined it broke in half, crumpled, like a child kicked to the side. She is lost and she knows it. Her last minutes are full of nothing but images, coming fast, furiously like a pounding speeder and she knows she has lost. All she paints are pictures now, what is and what was and what could have been. She imagines out in that vast desert wasteland the sky must have been a comfort. An endless blue and stars, stretching up into infinity. It would have been easy to dream.

His hands were full of knowledge and instinctive wisdom. They knew the sides to tickle and the cheek to caress. It was as if the lines on his hands mirrored the ones on her own, a visual guide to her very self. Even if he had never been discovered, but remained a passionate boy trapped on a purgatory of a planet, he would have slipped the gold with the same careful hint of devotion. An easy smile, fingers working carefully, nothing but stars in his eyes. She thinks of his hands undoing the laces, corded and red, his grin pressing itself against her neck. A slip of the shoulder, a brush of his lips. She wonders if he knows the ways of a thief. Perhaps he started early, for she can feel her chest right now and there is nothing there. Nothing to move blood in waves, nothing to pound.

She wonders who it was that the public saw. She can close her eyes and visualize the headlines, the various titles bestowed to him, and it is in this moment that she finally understands the set of his jaw and the shadows in his eyes. Here her sorrow comes to an impasse and she feels something catch in her throat; she thinks it is the words _I love you. _She longed to smooth away the hairs from his forehead along with the burden, and when that didn't work she tried the cool cloths. He always stirred and threw them off.

Who was the idealist? Was it she, the poised politician, with all her talk of righteousness and democracy? Such ideas were the distant dreams of a child, forced to mature before she grew into her soul. But he, with fire blazing in his eyes and ash in the air, brought back memories of a romp in tall grass, and a memory of a day in a past life. Certain words formed; ones that made her heart pause. Nevertheless, she was feeling generous, and she forgave. Perhaps it was that easy grin. That playful tilt of a chin. She thinks he could have asked her to throw herself off a mountain with him and she would have. She would have.

Maybe in another life they will meet in a field of tall grass. He will censure her anger with a wry grin and her eyes will soften to a liquid almond. For the life of a smuggler is one that is not easily undertaken and one that she has no patience for.

But perhaps this will be a story that ends not with a stopped heart.


End file.
